Energy Chief Names Panel to Review Missions of Nuclear Labs

The En­ergy De­part­ment has an­nounced who will sit on a com­mis­sion to re­view the mis­sions of the na­tion­al labor­at­or­ies, Sci­ence re­por­ted on Wed­nes­day.

En­ergy Sec­ret­ary Ern­est Mon­iz in a Tues­day press re­lease said the nine-mem­ber in­de­pend­ent pan­el will be co-chaired by Jared Co­hon, a civil en­gin­eer and past pres­id­ent of Carne­gie Mel­lon Uni­versity, and T.J. Glau­th­i­er, a former deputy En­ergy sec­ret­ary in the Clin­ton ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Con­gress ordered the es­tab­lish­ment of the com­mis­sion when it ap­proved the fisc­al 2014 om­ni­bus spend­ing bill in Janu­ary. The pan­el’s man­date is to as­sess wheth­er the na­tion­al labor­at­or­ies “are prop­erly aligned with the de­part­ment’s stra­tegic pri­or­it­ies; have clear … mis­sions that are not un­ne­ces­sar­ily re­dund­ant and du­plic­at­ive; have unique cap­ab­il­it­ies … to meet cur­rent and fu­ture en­ergy and na­tion­al se­cur­ity chal­lenges; [and] are ap­pro­pri­ately sized.”

An ini­tial com­mis­sion re­port is due by Feb­ru­ary 2015. A second as­sess­ment there­after is ex­pec­ted to ad­dress the po­ten­tial for mak­ing or­gan­iz­a­tion­al changes to the lab struc­ture.

There are 17 na­tion­al labor­at­or­ies; among them are the three main nuc­le­ar weapon labor­at­or­ies — Lawrence Liv­er­more, Los Alam­os and San­dia.